A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, b18 – write about a minor character, and for the GX bingo, the non-flash version, #007 – patience is a virtue.

Echo's See-Saw

She always knew a chance would come. It simply had to. The world couldn't be that unfair, after all. There was balance everywhere. It was the way they lived, the way they moved on. Day and night. Light and darkness. Old and young. Strong and weak.

And then there was Amon, who was strong but treated like one of the weak. And that shook her, because she'd thought it the other way at first. Not to his face, of course. Never to his face. But she had wondered what made such a rich family pick a child off the road and adopt him. She found out soon enough though. How clever he was. How smart. How deserving of a far better life than fate had originally given him, and he was in his rightful place now.

Or he was. Until the Grahams' finally had a child of their own blood, and Amon was pushed aside.

He should be grateful, they supposed. For the luxurious life he'd been able to live, and still lived. He was no longer the heir to their throne. Just another piece on the checkboard who could grow all the way up to the queen but never be king. That little baby incapable of anything except loud wails had that honour now, and it angered and hurt him just as much as it did her. It wasn't fair at all.

But she knew things would change again. The birth of the child had thrown Amon's future off course. Something else would bring it back. That was what balance was. The balance on a see-saw. The never-ending cycles of day and night. The balance on the world that spun on its tilted axis. But something would come along after that. Amon hadn't been raised as a prince to become a common servant. The world would give him back something. They just had to wait. Improve themselves. Be patient.

And then an opportunity did come – and it slipped away just as fast. Though she realised, afterwards, that she shouldn't have hoped for anything less. To have not done what Amon did would have meant allowing a preventable death to occur. Would have meant manslaughter. And Amon was good and deserving enough to have a path somewhere in his future without blood splashing it.

That was an opportunity, but not the right one. A test, perhaps. The true chance would come soon. She knew it. She believed it. She waited for it. She didn't know if Amon was waiting too. Sometimes it seemed he wasn't. Sometimes it seemed he threw his entire being into being the servant of the Graham family he'd become. But, at other times, he was trying to stand higher, looking for that path that would be the tree that bore the fruit of all his labour, and all his gifts that were wasted on the him of now.

And then there was that second chance. The other world that rose like jaws out of the Duel Academia sea and swallowed him.

Now, if only he would seize that opportunity, then their waiting – both their waitings and yearnings – would pay off.